When to go full time indie?
The 3 key takeaways regarding my experience.
Hey, listen!
I get asked this question every day.
It’s been a year since I jumped into it.
I’ll tell in this issue my point of view about it.
Milestone update: My boilerplate passed the $15k mark! 🥳
As many of you may know, I’m from Galicia.
The northwestern region of the Iberian Peninsula.
Spaniards have a lot of stereotypes about us: we never see the sun, we only eat seafood, only cows there, we are all cocaine traffickers, we always answer with another question and we are so indecisive — we always answer ‘it depends’.
Thus, when I am asked:
When to go full time indie?
Is it better quitting your job and go all in?
Is it better doing it in your spare time and quit when you make enough money?
I’m going to be extremely Galician answering that: ‘IT DEPENDS’.
1. Do you know yourself?
Everyone is different.
You should do an introspective journey for knowing yourself.
How do you use to handle these situations?
Are you more likely to do gradual transitions? Or do you need to drastically change things?
I’m more like the second type.
For instance, when I quit smoking about 10 years ago, I just did it overnight.
I was weighting around 100kg in my teenage. I started drastically diet and exercise and lost 20kg+
I’m not saying it’s the best way or even healthy to do it, but it’s how it works for me.
I’m just not good at doing gradual transitions.
For switching to a full time indie developer, it was the same.
I quit my 9 to 5 and did freelance for 6 months.
I saved money for a 1 year runaway, and took the plunge.
2. What’s your environment?
Ok, for me it is easy to say that.
I have no kids.
I have no mortgage.
I have no pets.
I share the living costs with my girlfriend and she has a stable 9 to 5 job.
I have no constraints or difficulties, other than saving enough money to run away.
My worst scenario would be:
Anything I make doesn’t work
I run out of savings
I have to go back to freelancing to accumulate again enough savings.
I start again.
IMHO, my worst scenario doesn’t scare at all.
So, why stressing about it? Take the leap.
However, your situation may be different.
Maybe you have kids, mortgage, your family depends economically on you, and so on…
Everyone’s life is different, and you have to evaluate your own.
If you struggle with those constraints, you can try doing it in your limited spare time.
It is possible.
Damn, for sure it is.
I see super heroes doing it like Aivars Meijers or Vladimir Khuraskin.
They both have children and build their successful apps while having their jobs as iOS developers.
There are also exceptional super legends, like Adam Lyttle. He started making indie apps full time, with 5 kids and a $200k debt.
Now he’s making $40k/mo from his indie iOS apps and debt free.
Sometimes, constraints are beneficial and make you more efficient.
3. What are your goals?
Not everyone needs or really wants to quit their job.
Not everyone has the mindset to jump into entrepreneurship.
Therefore, don’t be forced to do it just because there are a bunch of ‘cool guys’ spreading their MRR screenshots on Twitter.
Maybe you are pretty happy with your job, you do things that you like and have nice colleagues.
And maybe, you just enjoy crafting side projects in your free time, just because you like it, as a hobby.
I think that this could be perfectly another case — just coding small projects for the sake of enjoying it.
And eventually, one of them may even succeed.
So, don’t be harsh with yourself, and don’t force what you are not naturally feeling.
Still struggling
I am still fighting to have a comfortable life while being a full time indie hacker.
So far, I just managed to make enough for paying my bills and my food.
In other words, I am barely ramen profitable 🍜
After a year grinding, I still cannot say “I made it”.
But, I knew pretty well when I joined this game, that this was going to be a long term situation.
Most of successful indies failed dozens of times until making it.
Consistency is key.
Keep grinding.
See you next week! 🫡
Juanjo
I appreciate that you added the examples of people who have made it work as indie developers with more responsibilities, kids and debt. As someone with those things, it is nice to see others make it work just from side work and grinding at it for some time.